Mouse Tower

(The), on the Rhine, said to be so called because Bishop
Hatto (q.v.) was there devoured by mice. The tower, however, was
built by Bishop Siegfried, two hundred years after the death of Bishop
Hatto, as a toll-house for collecting the duties upon all goods which
passed by. The word maus or mauth means
“toll,” and the toll collected on corn being very unpopular, gave
rise to the tradition referred to. The catastrophe was fixed on Bishop
Hatto, a noted statesman and councillor of Otho the Great, proverbial
for his cunning perfidy. (See Hatto.)